An emergency debate will be held in Parliament later on Britain's response to the Syrian refugee crisis.
David Cameron has said the UK will accept up to 20,000 people from camps surrounding Syria over the next five years, with priority given to vulnerable children.
But Labour said that was inadequate and secured the three-hour Commons debate.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper insisted the UK must also help refugees who have already reached Europe.
The prime minister said the UK had a "moral responsibility" to those displaced by the conflict in Syria.
But he said taking people from camps in Syria, Turkey and Jordan would provide a "direct and safe" route to safety, instead of encouraging them to make the "hazardous" journey across the Mediterranean by boat.
The new arrivals will be offered five-year humanitarian visas, under the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme, and their resettlement will be paid for in the first year from the overseas aid budget.
Syrian refugees in the UK
20,000
more refugees will be resettled in the UK by 2020
4,980
Syrian asylum seekers have been allowed to stay since 2011
- 25,771 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to end June 2015
- 2,204 were from Syria
- 87% of Syrian requests for asylum were granted
- 145 Syrian asylum seekers have been removed from the UK since 2011
AP
The UK has been forced to defend its response to the migrant crisis in recent days.
Mr Cameron has refused to take part in a proposed EU-wide quota system to resettle those people already in Europe, instead pointing to the UK's contribution of £1bn in humanitarian aid to Syria.
He had said that taking more people into the UK was not "the simple answer" to the crisis, but on Monday, announced the UK would do more.
However, the Green Party's Caroline Lucas said the commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees "falls pitifully short of what's needed", while the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called it a "very slim response".
'Frontloaded'
An estimated 340,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Europe so far this year, most braving dangerous sea journeys from North Africa and Turkey.
France said on Monday it would take in 24,000 refugees over the next two years, while about 18,000 people arrived in Germany last weekend alone.
But Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania have all joined the UK in rejecting the idea of official resettlement quotas.
Ms Cooper, who persuaded Commons Speaker John Bercow to allow Tuesday's emergency debate, urged the prime minister to reconsider and "look at what more we are able to do with councils, with communities across the country who have come forward asking to help".
The Labour leadership candidate also dismissed the argument for restricting the scheme to those still in regional camps.
"He [the PM] has said he does not want to encourage people to travel - I would say to him they are travelling already, they are not waiting for a response from the British government," she said.
AP
Maurice Wren, Refugee Council chief executive, said the government's programme must be "frontloaded" as people "cannot wait until 2020 to reach safety".
Save the Children said the UK announcement would "make a real difference", but it must also take some of the thousands of unaccompanied Syrian children who have already travelled to Europe.
The Petitions Committee will decide on Tuesday whether a petition calling for the UK to accept more refugees - which has more than 425,000 signatories - will be granted a Parliamentary debate.
Meanwhile, the influx of migrants to Europe shows no signs of abating.
The UN is sending more staff and ships to deal with the increasingly desperate situation on the Greek island of Lesbos where some 25,000 migrants are stranded and living in squalid conditions.
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